Archive for the ‘china’ Tag
Today is a good a day as any to look back through history to find some strange rules, laws or customs. In the past I’ve shown some seriously strange laws still on the books in this country. Now let’s take a trip back into history look at some of their foibles because in truth some of theirs are way stranger than ours.
- It was once proposed in the Rhode Island legislature in the 1970s that there be enacted a two-dollar tax on every act of sexual intercourse.
- A law was passed in England requiring all corpses to be buried in a wool shroud, thereby extorting support for Britain’s flagging wool trade. The act was repealed 148 years later, in 1814.
- The average age of Elizabethan and Jacobean brides was about 24 and their bridegrooms around 27. The primary reason for delayed marriages was to limit births among poor people. The higher the social status, however, the younger the age at marriage.
- As in Abraham’s time, it was the custom among men in Rome, when swearing to tell the truth, to place one’s right hand on one’s testicles. The English word testimony is related to this custom.
- When a Chinese bystander ashore was killed accidentally by a cannon salvo of greeting from an English ship, during the early days of the China-Western trade, the English were forced to turn over to China the hapless gunner, who was promptly strangled.
- The Tinguian people of the Philippines have their own way of kissing. They put their lives close to each other’s face and quickly inhale.
- In 1853 Illinois passed a law that required any black entering the state and staying more than 10 days to pay a fine of $50. If he could not pay, the black could be sold into slavery for a period commensurate with the fine.
- Over the centuries, playing cards have been put to strange uses. They became the first paper currency of Canada when the French governor, in 1685, use them to pay off some war debts. In 1765, the year of the Stamp Act, when every pack of playing cards was being taxed one shilling, they were also used for class admission at the University of Pennsylvania. Napoleon even used them as a ration cards during the French Revolution.
- The town of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, carries on the multi-century custom called the “Weighing-in Ceremony.” In early May, the town’s mayor, mayoress, deputy town mayor, deputy mayoress, town clerk, and district counselors representing wards in the town’s boundaries are weighed in order to learn if they have grown fat at the public trough.
ISN’T HISTORY ENLIGHTENING?
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I have to admit I’m a bit of a “foodie”. At one time I was confident that the food systems in the United States were closely inspected. That was until I began learning additional facts that left me wondering what I’ve actually been eating. We are a country of laws (too many for sure) but these food facts are disturbing for me.
- Ground pepper must contain fewer than 475 insect fragments per 50 grams.
- No more than two rodent hairs, or 29 gnawed kernels, can be shipped in a pound of popcorn.
- Frozen peaches may contain up to 3% wormy or moldy fruit.
- Shelled peanuts must have fewer than 20 whole insects in a 100-pound bag.
- Canned pineapple cannot contain more than 20% moldy fruit pieces.
- Chocolate must contain fewer than 60 insect fragments per 100 grams, and no more than one rodent hair.
Here are a few additional food trivia facts.
- In China, the most popular use of Ketchup is as a condiment for fried chicken.
- The top-selling candy in the United States are M&Ms. Candy was invented in 1941 and named after its two inventors, Forrest E. Mars and R. Bruce Murrie. They debuted in 1954.
- The Haribo company produces roughly 100,000,000 gummy bears per day. If all of the gummy bears produced in a year were laid head-to-paw they would circle the earth four times.
- Each year Americans spend $9 billion dollars on candy.
- Out of each dollar spent at a movie theater’s concession stand, roughly $.85 is pure profit.
EAT UP
ENJOY YOUR BUG PARTS AND RODENT HAIR
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Any day is a good day to be told the truth. How’s that for words to live by? Some of these topics will definitely pique your interest. Sometimes the weirder the facts the truer the statements. See what you think.
Let’s try some sports:
- The infamous Bill Buckner of Red Sox fame had more career hits and Ted Williams.
- During World War II, so many NFL players were fighting in the war that the rival Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers temporarily teamed up to form the “Steagles”
- Walter Payton once threw a touchdown pass, caught a touchdown pass, and ran for a touchdown in the same game.
- Legend has it that Hall of Fame baseball player Wade Boggs once drank 107 beers in one day while traveling with the team.
- The only team to score 3 touchdowns in under 1 min. in the NFL is the New England Patriots. And they’ve done it twice.
Now for little sci-fi:
- It takes 200 million years for the sun to make one orbit around the galactic center.
- In order for the earth to become a black hole, its entire mass would have to be compressed into a space less than an inch in diameter.
- The sun makes up over 99% of the solar system’s entire mass.
- Venus spends backwards and no one knows why!
- Every planet in the solar system could fit in the space between Earth and the moon. Even if you count Pluto.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
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My father was a dog lover. My mother was a dog lover. I am not. My father trained hunting dogs and in his kennel were normally 15-20 adult dogs and upwards of 10-20 puppies. One of my chores and punishments was the shoveling and removal of their droppings on a daily basis. Many wheelbarrow loads later I decided dogs would never be my favorite pet. This may upset some of you “dog” people out there but so be it. I tried having dogs as pets in my twenties but I was a dismal failure. I eventually switched over to cats and became an official “cat” person. Here are a few facts from the history of dogs.
- In the 11th century the king of Norway, upset with his subjects, named his dog Saur to the throne. He reigned for three years as king. Note: “Dog Days” came to mean something totally different than it does today.
- In the 1600’s in Japan the shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, passed laws to protect dogs. Anyone who injured, harmed, killed, or annoyed a dog could be exiled, jailed, or executed. In one month alone in 1687 300 people were executed for being unkind to dogs. In his 30-year reign more than 60,000 people were put to death because of dogs. Note: Give me a cat anytime.
- In China dogs lived a double life. Some were treated as royalty by the elite of the county and were a preferred gift for the emperor and his minions. The other side of the Chinese coin was that the common folk more often than not ate dogs as a main course for their evening meal. Note: I know that eating dog is disgusting but unfortunately it still goes on to this day. Once I mistakenly ate a bowl of dog soup in Korea in 1968. I don’t recommend it.)
- Laika, the first dog to fly into outer space aboard Sputnick II, became one of the most famous dogs in the world. Unfortunately, the pooch passed away a few hours into the flight from overheating. Both a cosmonaut and a hotdog. Note: That was a joke, so don’t send any nasty comments.
CATS RULE!
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I thought today we might talk a little bit about food and drink. Just a little bit of trivia concerning some of our favorite consumables and some not so favorite. Don’t read this before you eat your lunch, it might put you off a little bit.
- To make 1 pound of honey, bees must tap an average of 2 million flowers and fly more than 50,000 miles.
- In ancient times oranges, not apples, were known as the” Fruits of the Gods”.
- Some fast-food hamburgers are made of only 12% meat.
- More than 45% of Americans eat fast food once a week.
- To burn the calories consumed while eating a McDonald’s Big Mac, large fries, and a large soda, you must walk briskly for seven straight hours.
- The US FDA allows pizza sauce at fast food restaurants to contain a maximum of 30 fly eggs per 100 grams, or 15 fly eggs and one maggot per 100 grams.
- Each day McDonald’s feeds more people than the entire population of Spain.
- Worcestershire sauce is created by dissolving the whole anchovies in vinegar, until the bones melt.
- Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
- Honey is the only natural food that does not rot. Theoretically honey could sit for 1 million years and remain completely edible.
- On average there are more than 1200 calories in movie theater popcorn if you include the butter topping. That’s the equivalent of the calories in one pound of baby back ribs or two McDonald’s Big Macs.
- M&Ms are the top-selling candy in the United States. Second is Reese’s peanut butter cups and third is the Snickers bar.
- In China, the most popular use of ketchup is as a condiment for fried chicken.
- The French government banned ketchup in its primary schools in 2011, fearing it would encourage children to develop Americanized taste preferences.
- No more than two rodent hairs, or 29 gnawed kernels, can be shipped in a pound of popcorn.
ENJOY YOUR MEALS AND SNACKS (LOL)
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All those years ago when I started this blog I had difficulty deciding on the proper name for it. After weeks of overthinking and indecision I decided on everyuselessthing. Initially I did a lot of political ranting but that was a wasted effort. Political discussions are to me as boring and useless as discussions of religion and sports. This blog name gave me the freedom to say whatever I wanted about any subject that tweaked my interest. Occasionally I shift gears and blog about unrelated and quirky information I’ve gathered over the years. Trivia is a favorite topic for me and today I’m going to fill your trivia basket with weird and hopefully interesting facts. Here we go . . .
- Sean Connery once worked as a coffin polisher.
- Johnny Mathis dubbed Miss Piggy’s singing voice in The Muppet Movie.
- Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.
- The first TV sitcom couple to share a double bed were the Munster’s in 1964.
- The blood in the famous shower scene in Psycho was really Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
- A pigs orgasm lasts for thirty minutes.
- Twelve or more cows are known as a flink.
- There are 450 hairs in an average eyebrow.
- The billionth decimal digit of the numerical value pi is nine.
- Woman blink twice as often as men.
That completes the first ten items of this post and hopefully the final ten will be even more useless.
- The first person to refer to a coward as a “chicken” was William Shakespeare.
- The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
- Mark Twain failed to graduate from elementary school.
- President Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot had to be removed from his funeral in 1845 because it was swearing.
- Australia is the only continent without an active volcano.
- On November 29, 2000, Pope John Paul II was made an honorary Harlem Globetrotter.
- The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
- The colors blue, red, yellow, black, and green were chosen for the Olympic Rings because at least one of them appears on the flag of every nation in the world.
- In 1956 the Physical Culture and Sports Commission of communist China recognized the sport of hand-grenade throwing.
- Butter was the first food product allowed by law to have artificial coloring. It is totally white in it’s natural state.
That’s it for today. More trivia lists will follow in the future. Now, I’ve got better things to do like cutting grass and then picking ticks off my body. Who doesn’t love Summer.
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I’m sitting up in my bed and the electric blanket has been resurrected once again. The nights are chilling down dramatically as reflected by my new morning wardrobe. A heavy robe, wool socks, sweat pants, and an extra cup of steaming hot coffee. Things like that can only be properly appreciated while sitting up in bed at a minimum of level 4 on the electric blanket. Just saying.
Last night no one really wanted to cook the evening meal so we made a trek to the Maine Mall to window shop, eat some almost nutritious food at the food court, and possibly spend a little money. Forgetting that it was a Saturday night was mistake number one. The place was packed with large numbers of rude people all rushing around, pushing, shoving, and generally being ridiculous. I also realized something else as we walked around observing many groups of teenagers huddled here and there looking for things to do. I’m truly glad I’m not married and don’t have any young daughters to worry about.
Any parent that permits their daughter to loiter around any mall just boggles my mind. If any daughter of mine insisted on hanging out at a mall with her friends I’m afraid of what my reaction might be. I can see myself in a tacky disguise scurrying around the mall, hiding behind plants, just to keep an eye on the activities of her and her friends. There are way too many unthinkable possibilities just waiting to happen in this kind of atmosphere.
I was in dire need of a few new T-shirts and was intent on finding some. We visited a store called ‘The Hot Topic’ where we seemed to be a little out of place. It’s very much like a ‘Spencer’s’ without all of the sexual paraphernalia. My better-half and I were the only people in that crowded store over the age of 25. I made my way to the back wall because I’d been told they have offer quite the collection of T-Shirts made with images of vintage rock groups.
I decided some time ago to make a few changes to my boring wardrobe. I concocted a few new rules to help make my life a little easier when it comes to making a personal fashion statement.
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No more white T-shirts of any kind. Being as clumsy as I am makes white t-shirts a nightmare. Everything I eat eventually leaves it’s mark somewhere on the front of the shirt..
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No more stupid or cute sayings on my shirts. It make me either look stupid or uncute.
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Buy only T-shirts about classic musical groups. There aren’t any current groups I’d allowed to be displayed on this body.
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No more extra-large shirts. I’m now just a large and proud of it.
I found a few shirts (see the photo’s) I absolutely loved, made my purchases and we headed to the food court.
It’s a place with long lines, plastic sporks, and borderline delicious foods. There were representative kiosks from most Asians cultures as well as many of the standard American calorie and fat factories. We pigged out on a selection or two from Arby’s because the lines for Chinese food were too damn long.
I think it’s quite possible the decline of this county was part of a well planned attack initiated many decades ago by the Chinese. I’ll bet years ago they decided as a first step towards invasion to build as many Chinese restaurants as they could in the US and get a large majority of the population addicted to their food. If by chance over the next decade we begin to see Islamic restaurants springing up everywhere it could mean only one thing. Eventually this country will be the prize that goes to the winner of the Chinese/Muslim food wars.
With indigestion in our near future we left the confines of the mall and headed home. That Arby’s feast was so good it keep coming back up all night reminding us just how good it really wasn’t.
Lesson learned, no more fast food from the food court.
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